Caffeinated Politics

Once again, women in Wisconsin are being denied full control of their reproductive health care decisions. Once again, Illinois is preparing to offer services for the abortion procedure. How we arrived at this politically driven and overly partisan roadblock can be found in this year’s massive congressional bill that passed with all Republicans in the House and Senate voting in favor, while all Democrats and independents voted against the legislation.  The attack on abortion rights was spelled out in Project 2025, Donald Trump’s playbook for his second term in the White House that gained much notice in last year’s presidential election.

Federal funds have been prohibited from being used to pay for most abortion care for nearly five decades under the Hyde Amendment. However, Planned Parenthood has been able to use federal funds via Medicaid payments and Title X, a federally funded family planning program, to help provide services other than abortion care, including contraceptive care, STI testing, pregnancy testing, and gynecological services to low-income and uninsured individuals. 

The new law includes a provision, which is set to expire July 4, 2026, that bars Medicaid payments for one year for organizations that received more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in fiscal year 2023 and primarily engage in family planning services and reproductive health and provide abortions. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin noted that the law was crafted specifically to penalize Planned Parenthood and its patients.

The law is being challenged in court, but an injunction that was blocking the law from taking effect was lifted earlier this month by the First District Court of Appeals.

In the 21st Century it is a profoundly harsh slap to women to purposefully design legislation that restricts reproductive rights and make them increasingly inaccessible. Abortion is, whether conservatives wish to accept it or not, a medical decision. And like any medical decision, it should be made by the person front and center to the issue at hand. When talking about abortion that means the woman.

Yet in Wisconsin, starting October 1st, due to partisan moves which championed a bureaucratic maneuver, women will need to cross state lines into Illinois to access care they should be able to receive in this state. Planned Parenthood of Illinois is now prepping for patients, akin to what the group saw after the Dobbs decision.

The number of patients traveling from Wisconsin to get abortions at Family Planning Associates in Chicago has directly correlated to court decisions on abortion access in Wisconsin, according to Dr. Allison Cowett, chief medical officer at Family Planning Associates. Cowett said she’s heard out-of-state patients share their frustration and anger that they have to travel to find access to an abortion.

Imagine needing chemotherapy and being told your insurance won’t cover it unless you travel to another state. Or being denied lifesaving surgery because your ZIP code doesn’t align with a politician’s ideology. That’s the reality for women in Wisconsin now. Abortion is healthcare, and healthcare should not be subject to political whims or geographic lotteries. What Republicans are doing on this issue (and a bevy of others) is simply insane.

The ones most to be impacted are low-income women, women of color, and rural residents who may not have the means to travel or take time off work. These women are mere pawns in Trump and the GOP’s games as they do not care that when it comes to reproductive rights, the decision to end a pregnancy is deeply personal, often agonizing, and always complex. It belongs in the hands of the patient and her doctor, not in the hands of someone who only wishes to pass a political bill or have talking points for some cheap and quickly forgotten campaign speech.

If Republicans actually believed in smaller government and personal freedom, they would not punish women on the issue of abortion rights and reproductive choices.